


All That Remains

by Saber_Wing



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Character Study, Drama, Emotional Hurt, Friends to Enemies, Friendship, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Whump, Whumptober Day 10 - Unconscious, meant to be platonic but stucky if you squint, though this kind of ended up being about Bucky and Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 20:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saber_Wing/pseuds/Saber_Wing
Summary: Stark was nothing to Bucky. Just another happy do-gooder who didn’t know when to quit.





	All That Remains

There was a time when Bucky would have moved heaven and earth for Steve Rogers.

They’d been more than a team. They were friends. Brothers. A dynamic duo, that made the Red Skull’s minions tremble. Left his Nazi compatriots cowering in their wake. Together, they’d been unstoppable. Invincible.

They’d been naïve, and they’d paid the price for it.

Bucky’s price was the ever-present chill in his bones. The agony, clawing at the nerves that joined his shoulder with his metal arm. It was the deep, dark ache that held his mind at ransom. The veil of apathy draped over him like a mantle. His price was everything he’d ever thought was right and good.

He’d never thought to ask Steve about his.

Bucky recognized the man lying prone upon the floor. The dark hair. The neatly trimmed goatee. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, filthy and torn. Blood stained the collar of his white dress shirt, trickling from a gash on his forehead.

Silently, the Winter Soldier crept closer – held two fingers to his wrist. Alive, though his pulse was slow. More thready than it should be.

“Hey.” Bucky reached out, shook his shoulder. “Hey. Wake up.”

He didn’t stir.

Narrowing his eyes, Bucky picked up his arm, pushed his sleeve back. There were fresh puncture marks in the crook of his elbow. A sedative, if he was lucky. Something lethal, if he wasn’t.

Tony Stark had been a thorn in Hydra’s side for a long time. There were any number of reasons they would want him, dead _or _alive. He knew secrets about S.H.I.E.L.D. Knew _everything _about the Avengers. Supposedly, he was one of the smartest men in the entire world. They’d put him to work. Make him build things before they broke his mind and shattered everything he was.

And why shouldn’t they? Stark was nothing to Bucky. Just another happy do-gooder who didn’t know when to quit.

Something glinted from beneath Stark’s suit jacket as Bucky set his arm down. There was a chain around his neck. A set of dog tags, dangling in the hollow of his throat. He recognized them the instant he saw them and hated himself for it.

The worn quality of the metal. That little knick beside the engraved name, where a bullet had clipped it once. The Winter Soldier snatched them up. Held them between a thumb and forefinger. Bucky used to tug on them playfully, whenever they happened to dangle outside of Cap’s shirt. And he felt…something, looking at them now.

Steve never took those off during the war. Not once. Not even when he bathed. Now, here they were, draped around Tony Stark’s _neck_.

He didn’t have to ask what that meant.

Bucky gazed down at this man, who was nothing to him. Felt something tight and nameless seize within his chest. Because this was Steve’s fella. And once, that would have meant something to him.

Maybe it still did.

Carefully, he levered Stark off the cold stone floor, throwing him over his shoulder. He stepped through the bars he’d bent back with his metal arm and slipped out the way he came. Crept over the corpses of the guards he’d dispatched. All twelve of them.

They’d be long gone before Hydra knew the Winter Soldier was ever there at all.

Once they were a good distance away – enough to break radio silence – he took out his cell phone. Punched in a number he’d memorized. The man on the other end picked up on the first ring. Bucky spoke first, before he could even take a breath.

“I have something of yours.”

Silence. So thick, he could have cut it with a knife.

Steve’s voice was hard. Dangerous. Bucky could hear the rough edges to the words. The tension in his tone.

_“Where is he? If you hurt him…”_

The Winter Soldier scoffed. “Spare me. If I wanted him hurt, I’d have left him with Hydra. I’m sending you coordinates. If you want him, meet me there.”

He hung up before Steve could form a reply.

Ten minutes later, Steve was throwing himself off the ramp of the Aven-jet before it even landed, somersaulting through the air toward Bucky. His shield was off his back before he hit the ground, poised to protect and defend.

He could change stance just as easily – could throw that shield at a moment’s notice. Bucky could see him balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to strike. Ready to morph into the human wrecking ball who’d taken on the world a dozen times over.

“Tony!” Steve all but leapt toward them. Stark’s head lolled as he reached for him, cupping his cheek.

The Winter Soldier hefted the billionaire off his shoulder, threading a finger around the chain dangling from his neck. “You should be more careful where you leave these. If any one of those Hydra goons had seen them, and knew he was _yours_? They’d have killed him out of spite. Lucky for him, I happened to be passing through.”

“Thank you.” Steve’s tone was raw. At once, seeming tormented and relieved. “Buck, I…_thank _you.”

The Winter Soldier's jaw tightened. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Don’t get used to it.”

Steve took Stark into his arms. Clutched him to his chest, almost desperately. He pressed his cheek to his forehead, unconcerned that he was smearing blood all over himself, from the gash above the billionaire’s eyebrow.

He gazed back at Bucky, eyes bright with emotion. And he didn’t have to say it for the Winter Soldier to know how grateful he was.

As he watched Steve turn away, cradling Stark like he was something precious, a sharp, ugly, painful emotion twisted in his gut. He didn’t pretend to know why. But he could make a guess.

Bucky remembered what it was to care for Steve Rogers. To move heaven and earth for him.

He couldn’t _be_ that Bucky. But the Winter Soldier knew the man who’d loved him would have approved.

**Author's Note:**

> It's one of my favorite head-cannons that Tony wears Steve's dog tags. I used that, it kind of got out of control, and I regret nothing. Also, writing Bucky was an experience. He really does need a hug. Poor guy. This ended up being more about emotionally whumping him than anything. But what an interesting dynamic, he and Avengers Assemble Steve have. Which is who this Bucky is loosely based off of. I write my stories in such a way that usually, you can operate off the assumption that the fandom is ambiguous Avengers, but really...Avengers Assemble is life.


End file.
